When I was 13-14 years old, I did something that I am too embarrassed to retell. Essentially, I stood in an unsafe position to take a photo of a moderately fast regional freight. I think the secondary nature of the line made me overconfident. As the train approached, I doubted my decision and moved away. I was at that age very knowledgeable about railways, but still immature. I would have benefited from some kind of advertising or safety guidance about how to behave in close vicinity of moving trains. I of course received that training when I became active in railway operations at an older age.

I don't recall every seeing something like that in Trains Magazine or anywhere else, like say, for example, at a tourist railway or museum.

"Wait a minute, Bob! That last play was a great attempt, but there's a flag on the field."
"Your right, Tom - let's see what the DS has to say."
"Looks like a 5 yard penalty for incorrect terminology on the field?"
"Must be that Run 8 thing, Tom. I wish the players understood the playbook better!"

Throttle position (Run 8) has little or nothing to do with speed, other than wanting to go faster or slower. I've got more hours than I can remember with the throttle in 8 and not going faster than a very slow walk, sometimes so slow you literally have to look down from the window sill to see if you're still moving forward. Load meter in the short-time zone longer than it should be and stench of hot electrical gear and hot crater grease wafting up into the open window. Also been in 8 with the Cdr and Bkmn walking ahead with buckets of sand manually sanding the ball just to keep it moving. So 'Run 8' doesn't mean you can't walk (or crawl) faster than the train.

Just like with loading gage, if we can't discuss/explain it properly, how are we to educate the public?

Interesting, I finally heard a good explanation of how a governor works on a diesel locomotive, each of 8 notches (or 16 on some passenger units) tells the diesel to try to go a certain RPM range, and if you say open it up all the way from idle to 8 the governor will move the fuel rack until it is giving the diesel maximum fuel to reach 900RPM but still moving slowly, so as you say context is everything here. I have only seen a fuel rack manipulated by hand so I really don't have any firsthand experience, but that explanation makes sense.

Now, back on topic, what throttle position was 844 in at the time and what did the crew do to stop as quickly as possible?

Chiming in to echo what Mr. Strohmeyer wrote earlier this morning at 5:05 AM related to this accident.

It was a horrible accident.

For what it's worth, there's a fascinating fact that can be traced all the way back to 1825.

It was on the first day of operation of the first steam powered locomotive in England on the Stockton and Darlington Railroad,
the "Rocket" struck and fatally injured a member of Parliament.
The engineer saw the man clearly enough, but even at a moderate speed the train could not be stopped before running him down.

John

You are obviously correct, it doesn't mean anything about speed. There is one aspect that might come into play though, an engine in Run 8 will be making a lot of noise. So it's typically going to be louder than say a light engine drifting downgrade. Whether or not that matters at all depends on the situation.



I have no specific info on that. Speaking only in general terms, steam isn't that much different than diesel in this situation. You put the train into emergency, which applies the brakes on the entire train (assuming no cars are 'cut out') and provides maximum braking force. You also slam the throttle shut to cut off any steam to the cylinders, thus ending propulsion forces from the locomotive.

Forget what you may have seen in the movies about horsing over the Johnson bar and opening the throttle to spin the wheels in reverse. That may have been useful in the handbrake and 4-4-0 Civil War era, but it's not something you'd do today.

I suppose you could center the johnson bar, but most likely things would happen too fast to think of it. In any case, the emergency application will lock up the drivers very quickly, so I don't see mattering much.

You may well slide the engine's drivers and flatten the wheels. But at this point you really don't care, all you care about is stopping as quickly as you can. Driver tires can be turned/replaced.

Reminds me of the story about an old engineer they asked "What do you do if you see a tank truck parked on the crossing?" He replied "I shut the cab windows to try and keep stuff out of the cab!" "Don't you apply the brakes?" "Well, sure, but by the time I figure out we're going to hit him, it's too late to matter much..."

Pray that it's milk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Huskisson

"[Huskisson] is commonly known as the world's first widely reported railway passenger casualty as he was run over and fatally wounded by George Stephenson's pioneering locomotive engine Rocket."

-Philip Marshall

Actually, as a passenger train conductor, I have seen plenty of examples of otherwise rational people putting themselves in risky situations, just to get a photo of a steam locomotive. One I remember clearly was a passenger who sat in the middle of a road crossing to get a photograph while traffic was crossing the railroad. When we did photo run bys, I instructed the trainmen to stand on the photo line to police the photographers-anyone crossed the photo line and they were to back the offender up. If the person refused, that was it for the run by. Frankly, whenever something had to be cut to make up time for a delay, I would cut the run by first. From my experience, those take up too much time and too much risk for too little return.

Obviously controlling the general public at locations that are not secured is much more problematic.

As the old story goes, "I'd call my brother."

Reversing a locomotive was essential in the 1850s-most locomotives of that era didn't have brakes.

As for the proverbial tanker truck, I'd get off the locomotive. Railroaders have survived unloading from moving trains at up to 80 mph and survived with minimal lasting effects.

It's really the luck of the draw. I remember reading a first person account of someone who rode through a gasoline tanker on a Soo Line 4-8-2 during the forties. IIRC he was the fireman, and was on the deck at impact, which knocked him down. The engineer and brakeman joined the birds. Since he was already down on the deck, he stayed. The engineer and brakeman had the misfortune to jump into the heart of the fire and perished. The fireman rode through it and survived... and this wasn't even an all weather cab, although the canvas cab curtains may have been closed. He stated that when the train stopped several cars at the head end were ablaze and there were occasional fires for a half mile along the track back to the road crossing. The truck driver also perished.

If you want to estimate for yourselves, here's a video from the next crossing down, that DOES NOT show the person being struck but does show the emergency stop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbMvvvDFkMw~wko

And on a related note, this video from 2012:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT9j2oK2Utg

I was very sad to hear this. It is very unfortunate how some people are unaware of there surroundings. My thoughts and prayers go to the crew and family. 844 also headed back to Cheyenne this afternoon, leaving Denver about 3:00pm hauling crew cars plus freight, equaling to about 20 cars.

Cody Muse

In the old days it was commonplace in auto racing. Take this picture of spectators lining the track inches away from Formula One cars going through the fearsome Eau Rouge complex at Spa.



Back in the day this was often the norm with road course racing.

The people in that photo look like they all have situational awareness. You don't see any of them standing on the pavement.